Author's Note/ DISCLAIMER: You guys are going to hate me. I deeply apologize for this ending. It's just the way the canon decided to form in my head. I'm not sure what I have against Kaidan, but things never go his way with my femSheps. I was listening to "Over and Out" by Alkaline Trio so I'm sure that contributed. Again, so so sorry.

Garrus had always believed in Shepard. More than that, he had faith in her. He had faith that Shepard would always come through for you.

He knew that she was capable of betrayal. He had seen her do it. He had seen her... destroy people.

He had seen her fail.

But he didn't believe this was a malicious flaw in her character. He believed that Shepard's was a...force of nature. You were either strong enough to bear the weight of her presence or you were broken. He took pride in the fact that he was one of the few who were hardy enough.

When things got ugly, and people began to lose hope that they would ever get home, his faith had kept them strong. He never wavered in his belief that they would get off that deserted planet, and that she would be waiting for them.

People died. They weren't without loss. In the end, they succeeded.

Garrus ordered the ship to Earth first. No one questioned the decision.

When they reached the planet, they were overwhelmed with relief. When they had fled the explosion of the Citadel, they had all made dark assumptions about the results of the war. Everything was chaos. They had no way of knowing if the Crucible worked, or if it had been too little too late...

All they knew for certain was that the Mass Relays were destroyed. They had taken it as a bad sign.

But Earth was whole. Not only that, she was recovering. Clean up was well under way and there were signs of re-growth. They were rebuilding. More than they could have hoped.

They were given a heroes' welcome. It seemed that Earth, and the galactic community as a whole, were equally surprised to find them alive as well. They had disappeared for nearly 12 solar months. Ceremonies had been held in honor of their disappearance.

Her name was the first word out of his mouth when they landed.

When they told him, he fell to his knees, his head in his hands. One by one, the surviving crew of the Normandy stepped forward and placed their hands on his shoulders. He felt Tali put her palm on his brow plate and whisper, in the softest voice:

"Keelah se'lai."

She was alive.

She was alive.

When he first saw her, all they could do was stare at each other. There were no words in any language that would say enough. He sat by her bedside, dumbfounded by the breath that sank in and out of her chest.

Finally, she said, "I waited at the bar."

He felt his breath leave him effortlessly, and he sank forward to rest his forehead against hers. She sighed against him, and put her palm on his cheek.

"I'm glad you came back," he whispered deeply.

He pulled his head back far enough to look into her eyes. She smiled.

"It wasn't easy," she said thickly.

He glanced down the bed, to the empty space where a leg should have been. When he glanced back at her, she looked sheepish.

"We'll get you a better one," he said confidently.

She laughed a little tearfully.

"Something in blue?"

"You always looked good in blue," he purred in agreement.

They stared at each other in silence, memorizing one another's faces in that moment. The surreality of finding her alive was making his head swim.

"Where have you been?" She asked forcefully.

He closed his eyes, gripping her hand. She did not flinch, but held on more tightly.

He told her about the deserted planet. He told her about their struggle to survive, and how they had escaped.

She told him about the bar, and the people she had met there. She told him she had had a brandy with the Illusive Man.

"Now, you're joking."

"He said he was sorry," she said, her expression thoughtful, "He said he was dead before I ever killed him."

She looked up at Garrus, her eyes a little troubled and shining.

"He said he always believed I would do the right thing, in the end. He said he believed in me."

A respectful silence descended. Garrus tried to imagine the Illusive Man, tipping his glass to the Commander, and saying he was sorry. He tried to imagine a man who had followed a road of Good Intentions all the way to the gates of Hell.

She asked about the crew, drawing him back to the present.

He told her who was alive.

She asked about Kaidan.

Garrus dropped his eyes, one claw covering his mouth. Shepard's grip on his other hand tightened considerably.

"Garrus."

He tried desperately to think of the right words. He wanted to say it right. He didn't want to say it at all.

"Garrus, what happened to Kaidan?"

He took a deep breath, and looked up into her eyes. Her expression was fierce and full of fire. She would find the truth, whether he told her or not. It was her nature.

"He committed suicide."

Her face went slack with shock. He had never seen her look so completely surprised, not even when they had pushed their way through the Collector Base and found a human Reaper gestating in it's underbelly. He could practically see the information sinking into her mind. Her expression went stony, and hard.

"Tell me," she said, her voice cold.

"Shepard-"

"Don't you dare. Not you. Tell me the truth."

His shoulders sank with disappointment. It had been hard enough telling her the cause of death: that one little sentence that swept up all the ugly little details and packaged them into one clinical whole. How could he hope to unwrap it and show her the facts, one horrible piece at a time?

"Things got...pretty bad on that planet. One or two people died of injuries from the initial crash. A few died of natural causes or accidents. Food poisoning...animal attacks...," he sighed. "But then people started dying in fights. Cabin fever I suppose. Some people were losing hope. We had to do some serious cannibalizing on the ship's systems to get her running again and for a while it looked like...,"

He paused, trying to order his thoughts. He tried to remember where things started to go wrong. He tried to remember how it started, or if he had even noticed at all. Until it was too late.

"People kind of looked to me as a leader. I never really thought about why, at the time. I guess they figured you and I were close, if anyone was going to be the most like you..."

She looked upwards and laughed, tears beginning to well up and spill over her cheeks. He wiped one of them away and smiled when she looked at him.

"Makes sense to me," she said around her tears.

"I tried to keep the peace as best as I could," he said softly. "I tried to keep people's spirits up. But Kaidan...," he trailed off thoughtfully, searching for words.

"He began to pose a problem," he said at last.

"What kind of problem?" She asked, watching him shrewdly.

"He...requisitioned the liquor stores. He had been acting strange. Next thing I know, there's some kind of..'disturbance' in the Port Observatory. I get there, and Kaidan's got a weapon drawn and is refusing to give anyone a drink."

He shook his head at her confused expression. He hadn't understood it at the time, either.

"Something had changed in him, Shepard. He wasn't the same."

Shepard looked up to the ceiling, trying to slow the tide of tears that were pouring over her cheeks.

"I don't have to tell you the rest," he said hopefully.

She shook her head, scowling at the tiles up above.

"Tell me what happened next," she said thickly.

Garrus sighed, frustration and uncertainty rumbling his chest.

"He was the 'town drunk' for a while. I let him keep it. If he wanted to drink his sorrows away, fine. We worked better when we were all sober, anyways," he said, cutting the air with his free hand. But his righteous anger faded as he continued.

"Things didn't get really bad until he ran out. People started to complain. I went out to talk to him, try to reason with him, try to...I don't know- remind him of who he was. I tried to convince him that you wouldn't want to see him this way...," he sighed. "Shouldn't have brought you up," he said darkly.

She frowned deeply at him.

"What do you mean?"

"He hated me Shepard. I mean he hated me," he said, his voice full of awe. "I couldn't have even begun to understand just how much."

"Why?"

"Because of you. Because you chose me," he said softly.

Shepard turned back to the ceiling, her face expressionless. Garrus found himself staring past her, to a night in an unfamiliar forest, where a familiar face had turned on him. He had known, after the night Shepard had confessed her brief moment of infidelity, that he and Kaidan were no longer friends. But he never expected that Kaidan's hurt could blossom into such fresh hatred.

"We fought, of course. I didn't want to hurt him, Shepard," he said, his voice pleading. "I did my best not to, but he was going to kill me."

Shepard nodded, her eyes still fixed on some point far above her.

"I know. It's ok," she said softly. "How did the fight end?"

"I managed to pin him. I gave him two options: either he spent the rest of his time on that miserable planet in lockdown, or he could leave. I would give him all the supplies he would need. He could trade with us and we would bring him with us when we left, but if he came back to camp before then, we would shoot on sight."

She met his eyes, waiting.

"He chose to leave," Garrus said simply.

He remembered watching the Major disappear into the woods. Kaidan had turned back, once. Garrus had seen the look on his face. At the time, it had made him uneasy. Now, he knew why.

"A few nights later we heard a gunshot. We argued over whether we should investigate or not. A lot of people thought we should ignore it. I overruled. I took Liara and Dr. Chakwas with me. Just in case."

He expelled a breath in dry laughter at his own foolishness. Deep down they all knew what had happened.

"He was already gone when we got there. He put his pistol in his mouth...," he stopped, glancing at her to read her face. There was nothing there.

"What did you do with the body?" She said quietly.

"Liara-" he cleared his throat, the words feeling thick, "Liara buried him. She seemed to care about him a great deal, in the end. I suspect that they...that they turned to each other, in your absence."

Shepard glanced at him, not quite surprised but questioning.

"Liara is pregnant," he said quietly. "She hasn't talked about the father to anyone, but I saw her face when we found him, Shepard."

Shepard ran a hand through her hair, before letting it rest over her mouth.

"She must hate me," she said quietly into her palm.

"She's older than that, Shepard," he said gently. "But she is still grieving."

They fell into a respectful silence after that. Her eyes were far away, shining with tears that refused to fall. Finally, her hand slid away from her mouth and rested on top of his. He gave her a reassuring squeeze.

"Did he leave anything explaining why?" She asked, turning her deep blue pools on him.

He shrugged uncertainly and scratched his neck.

"I'm not sure. Liara took the data chip from his omni tool. I know she sent something to you. She said that, if you were alive, you would read it when you were ready."

She nodded, swallowing hard. For a moment, he thought she might pull up her omni tool and read whatever the asari had sent her, right then and there. A flicker of fear crumpled her features and she hesitated.

Garrus was a little relieved. He wasn't sure he was ready to know what the Major had to say in his final hours, either.

"I have a few more weeks of physical therapy before they let me out of here," she said, forcing a smile. "Are you going to be around for a while?"

He smiled at her, laughing gently.

"Are you kidding? I'm never letting you out of my sight again."

She grinned at him.

"Planning on a new career as my personal body guard?"

"I'm not sure how many times a person is supposed to narrowly avoid certain death, but I think you humans have an apt saying: 'Third time's a charm'?"

"I'm pretty sure I've actually died once already. For all we know, that means I'm immortal now."

"You are hard to kill," he murmured fondly and leaned forward to press his face into her neck. He breathed her scent deeply and felt dizzy when he realized she smelled exactly the same. She pressed her cheek against him, sighing.

"There's no point putting it off, is there?"

His reply was a deep subvocal of fear and uncertainty. He knew she was talking about the email from Kaidan. As hard as she might try, Shepard was not patient, and she never turned her face from the grim realities of the truth.

He sat back to give her space as she pulled up her omni tool and scanned the many emails that crowded her inbox. When she found the right one, he watched her face to get some idea of what the words might say. There was hurt sparkling in her eyes, but the muscles of her face remained relaxed and impassive.

Finally, she let the little orange window close. They sat in tense silence for a moment while he waited for her to say something, anything.

"Shepard," he said quietly. Her fingers were slowly tightening around his palm with crushing force.

She glanced at him, as if startled.

"Don't get lost in this," he said firmly. She turned away from him, nodding dismissively.

Garrus grabbed her chin, forcing her to look at him.

"I mean it," he said sharply. "Don't let this consume you. Don't follow him, where ever he went. Stay here. With me."

Tears had already begun to pour over her cheeks, re-tracing the paths of the ones that had come before. She sobbed and pulled him toward her with her free hand. He leaned forward willingly, returning the pressure of her lips against his. When she spoke, it was a whisper that she spoke against his mouth.

"There's no place I'd rather be."

XXX

From: L. T'Soni FWD: From: K. Alenko

To: KC. Shepard

Subject: Untitled

Shepard,

I know that there's a slim chance that you will ever see this. I wish I had Vakarian's faith. But all I see is loss. Everything has been taken from me. I know there's nothing I could ever say that would help you understand. Writing this is probably a waste of time. What a waste it all was, for us to end up here.

How did we end up here?

I'm not sure where it went wrong for me. Some where down the line, I got lost, Shep. I lost sight of everything. I couldn't tell the difference between lovers, enemies and friends. I've managed to hurt everyone I care about. After everything that has happened...I'm tired. I'm so tired, Shepard.

I want you to know that I'm sorry. I'm sorry for the way things ended between us. I'm sorry I couldn't be the better man and move on. I'm sorry I couldn't be what you needed.

I hope you find happiness, Shepard, whether in this life or the next.

With love, forever and always,

Kaidan Alenko